Chapter 1

Under Her Control

Twenty years after the Second Sorceress War

After the light enveloped Gerra and Leo, they had seemingly been thrown into an empty void, moving at impossible speed but feeling weightless at the same time. Gerra could only liken it to a wormhole or crossing through the fabled Interdimensional Rift. How long this went on for was impossible to say, as Gerra could hold no coherent thought in his head and time itself seemed incomprehensible.

He kept his gaze fixed on Leo and tried to remember that the General was now his enemy. That as soon as he reached the time and place of his and Odine's choosing, he would have to be ready to fight for his life.

Time passed, for it must have done so. Gerra started to fear that something had gone wrong, that he would spend the rest of eternity in this state, when suddenly he and Leo materialised into the bottom of what looked to be a massive dish.

It took a moment for Gerra to realise what he was looking at. Leo looked away from Gerra to briefly glance around, looking equally perplexed.

They were in what had been known during this era as Fisherman's Horizon. The giant dish was the nerve centre of renewable energy for the ocean city, containing hundreds of solar panels and surrounded by countless wind turbines at its rim. At the centre of the dish was a substantial raised platform, atop which was a small dwelling and a performance stage.

The time of day was as Odine had intended, the early hours of the morning. The solar panels were raised vertically to the east to catch the rising sun. A waxing moon, almost full, bathed the dish in silver light.

In the next second, the two of them met each other's gaze. 'What in Hyne's name have you done?' Leo demanded, resuming his guard.

Gerra was about to answer, when he noticed the crystal at Leo's neck was devoid of its usual dark-blue resonance. 'You no longer have Bahamut.'

Leo's eyes moved to Gerra's own pendant after seeing his own. 'Ifrit and Phoenix are gone, too.'

Losing his GFs had not been part of the plan. But for now, Leo not being able to draw on the mighty Bahamut would even things between them. 'We'll settle this man to man, then, just as you always wanted.' Gerra said.

He lunged at Leo with a quick upthrust, who easily angled his great gunblade downward to parry. Leo stepped forward and swung Harbinger upward, his movements no less lithe for a warrior of his girth even without a GF. Gerra simply stepped out of line, and the twin blades whistled through where he had been standing a moment before. Gerra swung Hyperion backhand, but Leo pivoted and caught the tip near his gunblade's hilt.

They said nothing save for a few grunts as they moved back and forth in between a line of solar panels. Gerra was only lightly armoured beneath his trench coat, which had always been his preference to remain more supple. He had never believed in taking multiple hits inside a suit of armour, having initially learned to fight in the coliseums, where armour was forbidden and there were no second chances.

Conversely, Leo would never dishonour himself by using bullets. Harbinger was loaded with blanks to increase the devastation of a slash, so Gerra did not have to worry about remaining within it.

Hyperion was loaded with live ammunition, as Gerra had never had the same reservations. Gerra parried a knee-buckling cleave from Leo, brought his elbows in, and squeezed the gunblade's trigger. The bang from the high-calibre shot reverberated around the giant sun dish and the bullet caught Leo in his breastplate.

The obsidian armour, weaved with sorcery, stopped the bullet cold. But the force of the shot was enough to make him stagger. Gerra knew that only a shot to a join in the armour, or a headshot, would be enough.

Gerra pressed his attack, but a simmering rage began to manifest in Leo's expression as he gradually regained the offense, something Gerra had never seen before. Even when they had stood side by side against Omega.

'How could you betray the Empress, you treasonous piece of shit! You were never worthy of being her Knight! I'll bring her your head even if I have to follow you back to the dawn of time!'

The big man emphasised each statement in between powerful strikes of his gunblade, which almost made Gerra lose his footing. Planting his rear foot, Gerra aimed a solid sidekick into Leo's sternum and followed up with an unsuccessful overhand strike.

'Halt!'

It was a commanding voice coming from the stage area, at the centre of the bowl. The gunbladesmen simultaneously backed off and looked in its direction.

On the platform's edge were soldiers in uniforms that Gerra recognised as being from the old Empire: tight bodysuits augmented with purple cuirasses, brassards, and greaves, with beige elbow and knee cops.

The soldier in the centre held a broadsword, while the other two had old Esthari-style gunblades: double-bladed pickaxes topping stubby, triple-barreled guns that could be chambered for all manner of ammunition.

'Don't move!'

Without their GFs, Gerra would not be able to flee as easily, so decided to stand his ground. Leo must have come to the same decision. They slowly moved to face the soldiers, who kept their gunblades pointed at them as they quickly made their way down the steps.

Gerra did not fear the gunblades. The invisible shields generated from the device on his belt would protect them from gunfire beyond a certain range. Leo would have one, too.

The middle of the three – a non-commissioned officer, judging by the number of stripes on his left arm – sized them up. He naturally seemed to be more wary of the more imposing Leo, glancing from his giant gunblade to his armour, and then to Gerra's Hyperion. He stopped a couple of yards away, the subordinates just behind him. 'Western gunblades,' he observed. 'Are you SeeDs? Identify yourselves!'

Leo snarled in disgust. 'SeeDs? Do I look like one of those white, marauding rats? I am General Leonidas Christophe, High Commander of imperial forces, and loyal retainer to the Empress, Ultimecia.' He gestured towards Gerra. 'I order you assist me in bringing this traitor to justice!'

The Esthari said nothing for a second, but then the NCO began to laugh, which was apparently permission for the other two to do so.

'There is only one commander of our forces, and that is General Zebalga. He answers only to Empress Reina,' the NCO stated. 'The two of you are under arrest for violating curfew, carrying arms in public, firing a weapon and disorderly behaviour. You will be subject to interrogation and questioning. Throw down your weapons immediately, and- '

With an infuriated roar, Leo took a single step forward and beheaded the leader with a great swing of Harbinger.

One of the lackeys was so stunned at the sudden, violent action he had frozen with terror, but the other fired his weapon. The buckshot blast was outside the range of Leo's invisible projectile shield and deflected harmlessly off it. Leo moved diagonally towards him and struck with a devastating stroke that ripped through breastbone, vital organs, and spine, nearly cutting the gunbladesman in half.

The third patrolman turned to flee, one hand going to a communication device above on his headgear. 'Two soldiers down!' he cried. 'Send-! '

He never finished the mayday call as Leo's twin blades pierced his back with a great thrust. The General covered the soldier's chin with a large palm and snapped his neck. As the soldier's head flopped, Leo unceremoniously dropped his body and spun to face his rival, who was nowhere to be seen.

'Gerra!'

Gerra took his opportunity to pass behind the nearest row of solar panels as Leo struck the first soldier. By the time the third was dead he was well away. Leo had not seen which way he had gone, and with each passing second, the General's chances of locating him among the vast array of solar panels became remote.

When the sounds of death stopped and Leo called his name, Gerra briskly removed his boots to better move in silence. He carried them with his left hand, Hyperion in his right. The light surface of the dish was cold underneath his feet.

Gerra would not normally condone fleeing an opponent, but defeating Leo would be no easy feat, and he could not know how many more Esthar soldiers were in the area. He needed to get to safety and regroup, to plan his next move. There was too much at stake.

As he made his way steadily up the bowl, he could hear Leo's enraged roars somewhere behind him, along with shouts of alarm coming from all directions. Gerra passed the final row of panels and came to a wall he knew bordered the old train tracks. Piercing alarm wails suddenly came from the warning sirens throughout the bowl, although he knew they were not foreshadowing a storm or flood.

Gerra quickly put his boots back on, sheathed Hyperion, and scaled the wall. He surveyed the dimly lit train tracks from the top, the flood-defence measure being wide enough for him to lay spread eagled on top.

Below him, two groups of Esthari rapidly moved towards the nearest communal steps into the dish, mechanically answering commands in their earpieces. Gerra believed they were the old cyborg patrolmen by the way they moved. He would have to take care not to be spotted by one of them, as they did not need headgear to see in infrared or night vision.

He began to crawl along the top of the wall, painstakingly making his way around the sun dish on unprotected knees, in the direction of FH's centre. It seemed to take a while in the biting ocean breeze, the smell of salt permeating the air. But after some time, the alarms stopped, and the shouting receded.

Gerra knew better than to think Leo had been captured or killed. If that were the case, he would have heard more of a struggle. The General would be fine, saved for a bruised pectoral from Hyperion's shot. They would meet again soon enough.

The only signs of life Gerra saw for a while were a couple of feral cats atop the wall. As soon as they saw him approach, they hissed and jumped to the nearest solar panel. He made out similar fleeting shapes on the rail on his right at regular intervals.

Eventually, as the sky began to change to a tell-tale orange and pink in anticipation of sunrise, Gerra reached the edge of FH's centre.

The ocean settlement had been a technological marvel at its inception, founded by dissatisfied engineers, pacifists, and politicians from pre-imperialist Esthar. It was completely self-sufficient, with wind turbines as far as one could see along with numerous hydropower and desalination plants.

This technology, in addition to fish, had been its main exports. Many of the dwellings, at first glance looking crudely constructed, were built from recycled materials. They were predominantly south-facing to maximise solar power.

Sadly, Gerra knew that FH's leaders had stubbornly pursued its pacifistic mission and it had been an easy acquisition for the Empress in the early years of imperial expansion.

When the wall began to run parallel with an alleyway behind a row of shops, Gerra looked to either end, then dropped onto a dumpster. A skinny cat removed its head from a bag it had been foraging from and bolted.

Between two dumpsters, Gerra attempted to stretch out some of the tightness in his muscles and joints. His knees were sore after crawling for so long. It was almost dawn now. Gerra could hear FH slowly coming to life as early shift workers began their day.

Gerra followed the cat and continued into what seemed to be a network of back passages, passing none other than homeless men and women, all dead to the world. They all wore dirty hats, were wrapped in sleeping bags or blankets, and loosely held spirit bottles. Many had discarded syringes around them.

The curfew, it seemed, did not extend to these alleyways, which was handy to know. Gerra guessed that trying to regulate the homeless population of FH was not something Esthar cared for.

He remembered the soldiers asserting that carrying weaponry was prohibited. Reluctant to part with it, Gerra removed Hyperion in its sheath when he found an adequate hiding spot between a collapsed cavity wall of a disused building. Full of litter and broken bricks, it was good enough. If not, then it would be found and sold by one of the rough sleepers to fund their substance habits for weeks to come.

It was the best he could do on short notice. He still had a dagger and his barrier shield. But without his Guardian Forces and Hyperion, Gerra could not help but feel more vulnerable than he had for many years.

He also removed the pendant from his neck, detaching the lifeless crystals and putting them in a pocket. If this was the year he had intended to come back to, Esthar had already developed the slave magicite. But without Ifrit or Phoenix, the crystals would serve him no purpose now.

Gerra moved on and came to the main market square of FH. Merchants busily set up their stalls, organising their wares as road sweepers and litter pickers unenthusiastically went about their early shift. To his left was the large entrance steps of the disused train station. Displayed from the top of the old building were two hanging banners.

The first was Esthar's imperial war standard, initially used under Sorceress Adel and restored after the overthrow of the Loire presidency. It was a semi-transparent light blue, adorned with the black tribal symbols that had been tattooed onto Esthar's founder and first Sorceress ruler.

The second was the national flag of Fisherman's Horizon: two golden fish biting each other's tails, with bronze murals – the trademark of FH's engineers – on their fins. This was over a deep blue background, with a light blue strip running diagonally through its centre.

A fishmonger picked up what looked like a kid's water gun, mercilessly firing it a couple of bedraggled cats that were tentatively approaching his stall. Gerra had seen more of these strays than anything else in the ocean settlement. FH seemed to be full of them.

He needed to get somewhere quiet and decide on his next move. Gerra strode across the square and up the steps to the station, which would no doubt be full of down and outs, much like the passageways he had just left.

The stench of the old building contrasted with the smell of the ocean outside. A mixture of urine, vomit, alcohol, tobacco, burning plastic, vinegar and excrement all hit Gerra when he was a couple of yards inside. Trying to breathe through his mouth only made him want to vomit himself.

Gerra strode confidently and with purpose. A couple of wasters briefly stared at him with dilated pupils before going back to those coveted highs, but most were sleeping off the binges from the night before and paid him no mind. They at least deduced he was not an Esthar soldier, probably assuming he was a drug dealer.

He made his way through the station, down a platform and onto the tracks. Further ahead, he could see a checkpoint restricting traffic in and out of the city from the east. Gerra walked to the edge of the tracks, climbing down a maintenance ladder to a yard at the back of the building.

The rectangular yard was dark and mostly empty of rough sleepers. On the other side of the yard, a woman was sitting against the wall of the station, staring into the middle distance, paying no heed to the cats and seagulls around her. On her left, an old drunkard lay on a tattered and nicotine-stained mattress, a large bottle of amber spirit clutched in one hand.

The smell here persisted but was not half as bad as inside the station. Gerra walked to the base of one of the railroad bridge's concrete piles and sat with his back against it. From here, he had a decent view of the whole yard, and remained hidden from some steps that led to the market square.

Gerra took a couple of deep breaths of ocean air, wondering where Leo was.